This is one in a series of articles written by 47-year teaching pro Ozzie Carlson and is designed to help golfers improve their game.

There have been any number of articles written on how we should start our golf swing, i.e., trigger our motion.

The reason for all this focus on the takeaway was perhaps best summarized by an old- timer, Lord Byron Nelson, who still holds the record for the most consecutive victories on the PGA Tour – 11 in a row!

Nelson stressed the first 18 inches of the swing as the most important segment of all. Why? Because it not only established the feeling of a connected or disconnected swing motion, but most importantly, the takeaway establishes the rhythm of our golf swing.

In today’s jargon, golf announcers almost universally interchange the words ‘tempo’ and ‘rhythm’ as though they are one in the same. In a proper golf swing, there are six beats of rhythm. Tempo is the pace at which we deliver them.

Most of our errant ball flights come from rushing our rhythm, meaning that we deliver our motion in fewer than these six beats. Nelson, Sam Snead and Bobby Jones are perhaps the last of the great rhythm swingers, who used the feel and flow of rhythm to build up the power/speed of their swing over time. Which is why they stressed things like soft hands, footwork, full hip turn, wide arc, a braced left side and a full balanced finish.

In the modern swing, benefited by shaft, clubhead and golf ball technology, we hear a lot more about coil, power, resistance, full shoulder turn and copying positions of the great players.

Let’s understand why rhythm is still the key to the consistency and accuracy we all seek. Rhythm has all to do with the feeling of connections in our swing. There are several important connections of note:

First and most important is the feeling of connection to our target from set-up and alignment, through takeaway, backswing, downswing and delivery from ball to target. This is the one we most often lose when out of rhythm.

Next is focus on where we are swinging to, so that we also swing away from - our target. These two feels of connection - the physical and the mental - work together to produce ball flights directed to hit targets.

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In my experience as both a player and a teacher of this great game, most of us give far too little attention to these two primary connections when practicing, so they become forgotten parts of our routine when playing. This is the primary reason why so many of us have trouble taking our “great range game” to the golf course.

Now, just before getting into the connections within the swing itself, let’s take a moment to discuss tempo. Most of us have been told at some point that we need to slow down! Yet, we all know that clubhead speed creates distance. So on its surface, swinging slower is a battle we tend to lose, primarily because it’s counterintuitive.

What is important to understand about tempo is that the tempo of your own swing must be natural to you. It must match your life in general: how fast/slowly you think, walk, talk, and eat. Rank yourself in these categories on a scale of 1 - 10, and then swing at that same tempo.

The rhythm connections in our swing all stem from our two natural motion diagonals as identified by Thomas W. Myers in his book: Anatomy Trains. The lead motion diagonal for right-handed golfers extends upward from the left ankle to the right shoulder blade. The power motion diagonal extends upward from the right ankle through the left glute to the left hip joint (left pivot).

Using ankle rolls to activate these motion diagonals, while feeling a handle, elbows and left pivot connection, produces a very relaxed rhythmical motion during that first 18 inches of our takeaway and the feel of building up swing speed using our big muscles to accelerate our arms, hands and club speed from ball to target.

Hence, Sam Snead’s admonition: “It takes more time to deliver more speed!” Take a look at the accompanying video on my web-site: golfstruck.com, to gain the value of rhythm in your game and learn more about the six beats of rhythm.